261AND THERE was a famine in the land, other than the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Gerar, to Abimelech king of the Philistines.2And the Lord appeared to him and said, Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land of which I will tell you.3Dwell temporarily in this land, and I will be with you and will favor you with blessings; for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father.4And I will make your descendants to multiply as the stars of the heavens, and will give to your posterity all these lands (kingdoms); and by your Offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, or by Him bless themselves, 5For Abraham listened to and obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commands, My statutes, and My laws.6So Isaac stayed in Gerar.7And the men of the place asked him about his wife, and he said, She is my sister; for he was afraid to say, She is my wife--[thinking], Lest the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah, because she is attractive and is beautiful to look upon.8When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac caressing Rebekah his wife.9And Abimelech called Isaac and said, See here, she is certainly your wife! How did you [dare] say to me, She is my sister? And Isaac said to him, Because I thought, Lest I die on account of her.10And Abimelech said, What is this you have done to us? One of the men might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt and sin upon us.11Then Abimelech charged all his people, He who touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.12Then Isaac sowed seed in that land and received in the same year a hundred times as much as he had planted, and the Lord favored him with blessings.13And the man became great and gained more and more until he became very wealthy and distinguished;14He owned flocks, herds, and a great supply of servants, and the Philistines envied him.15Now all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had closed and filled with earth.16And Abimelech said to Isaac, Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we are.17So Isaac went away from there and pitched his tent in the Valley of Gerar, and dwelt there.18And Isaac dug again the wells of water which had been dug in the days of Abraham his father, for the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham; and he gave them the names by which his father had called them.19Now Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found there a well of living [spring] water.20And the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, The water is ours. And he named the well Esek [contention] because they quarreled with him.21Then [his servants] dug another well, and they quarreled over that also; so he named it Sitnah [enmity].22And he moved away from there and dug another well, and for that one they did not quarrel. He named it Rehoboth [room], saying, For now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.23Now he went up from there to Beersheba.24And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, I am the God of Abraham your father. Fear not, for I am with you and will favor you with blessings and multiply your descendants for the sake of My servant Abraham.25And [Isaac] [G]With Isaac God came first. Before doing anything else in the new place, he built an altar and then waited there to call upon the Lord. Second came his home; he pitched his tent. Third came his business; his servants dug a well.built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord and pitched his tent there; and there Isaac’s servants were digging a well.26Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar with Ahuzzah, one of his friends, and Phicol, his army’s commander.27And Isaac said to them, Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you?28They said, We saw that the Lord was certainly with you; so we said, Let there be now an oath between us [carrying a curse with it to befall the one who breaks it], even between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you29That you will do us no harm, inasmuch as we have not touched you and have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed or favored of the Lord!30And he made them a [formal] dinner, and they ate and drank.31And they rose up early in the morning and took oaths [with a curse] with one another; and Isaac sent them on their way and they departed from him in peace.32That same day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had dug, saying, We have found water!33And he named [the well] Shibah; therefore the name of the city is Beersheba [well of the oath] to this day. 34Now Esau was 40 years old when he took as wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite.35And they made life bitter and a grief of mind and spirit for Isaac and Rebekah [their parents-in-law].